


bring her home

by dustywings



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-26
Updated: 2017-05-26
Packaged: 2018-11-05 04:02:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11005569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dustywings/pseuds/dustywings
Summary: ‘You know, I’m not afraid of being with you. I’m afraid of beingwithoutyou. I’m afraid of waking up, and not finding you beside me.’[Krista/Ymir]





	bring her home

**Author's Note:**

> Just a slight warning that this story will contain manga spoilers. Cheers!

_ Tales of an endless heart _   
_Curses is the fool who's willing_   
_Can't change the way we are_   
_One kiss away from killing_

 

 

 

 

Then, for a moment, Krista is fooled into believing _she’s dead_.

Sometimes, people lie. 

They tell her she’s dead, she’s been _ripped apart_ ; she’s not coming back. They feed their Queen with lies and deceit, and it’s her Father all over again. 

For a moment, Krista _believes_ it.

 

 

 

 

 

Until that day. That day when a scrawny, disheveled and bleeding stranger stumbles into her throne room. It’s remarkable the guards didn’t notice. But, Ymir has a knack for sneaking around without being spotted. 

After all, that _trick_ was her survival when she was a child. 

_When she was sixty-years-old and a child._

Krista doesn’t recognise her at first. Ymir recognises her immediately. 

Oh, _God_. Krista gasps. _This isn’t a stranger_. Her body is overwhelmed, and she starts to tremble; her hands cover her mouth, and she doesn’t know how to react, and then–– _she breaks_. Krista lets out a horrible noise, like an injured animal. Tears freely roll down her cheeks, and she could craft a _river_ with them.

Ymir can _feel_ her heart shatter. 

It’s the kind of pain which forces out the air from her lungs. The kind of pain which makes her weak at the knees, and every little ounce of energy in her body to fade. Witnessing Krista cry _at the sight of her_ is such a beautiful, terrible picture. God help her, Ymir won’t be able to sleep for _days_ with this _face_. 

She’s awkward. She’s not sure what to do. Ymir stands in the doorway, wide eyed, her fist clenched, and looking like anything _but_ Royalty. This place doesn’t suit her in the slightest. She has no _business_ here. In her rags, and her wounds, and the Shifter marks across her face. They scream _traitor traitor you fucking traitor_.

‘I––’ 

That is when Ymir sees the uniform, her hair, neatly tied into a bun. _This girl is a woman_. This woman is a _Queen_. Ymir swallows. She’s afraid this Queen might finally come to her senses, and exile her. Throw her aside. _Because she can_. This isn’t Krista. _This is Historia_. And Ymir is so _ashamed_ to have missed so much. 

Krista finds her balance. Scarred with agony, she walks over, and Ymir says, ‘I’m sorry it––’

The _slap_ echoes the entire building. 

Ymir’s cheek is on fire. 

Slowly, she turns to look back at Krista. _Pathetic_. ‘I’m sorry it took me––’

The slap is harder this time. 

Ymir grimaces. 

It’s not the slap which hurts most. 

Tears sting her eyes, and her throat narrows. _What have I done?_ Ymir meets Krista’s unbelievably blue eyes. She’s a wreck, completely tarnished by her weeping. This Queen has lost all control, and she’s _falling apart_. 

That is just _how much_ Ymir means to her.

Like an _idiot_ , Ymir tries again. ‘I’m sorry it took me so long.’

When Krista raises her hand again, Ymir grabs her wrist. Krista struggles against her strength, and she exclaims, eyes flooding with tears. _She won’t stop crying_. Ymir fights her, now unable to stop crying herself. Krista tries to yank her hand away now. Ymir is stubborn. They hold their gaze, be it blurred with liquid, and finally Krista falls.

She _falls_ into her.

Ymir catches her. 

Krista grabs a fistful of Ymir’s torn shirt, breathes in her smell: _everything_. Dirt, blood, metal, homeless. She buries her face. Starts to shake, because she has to cry again, and this angers her. She doesn’t want Ymir to witness her this way, to witness her as this fragile, sensitive little thing. _Because she’s not_. She’s changed, she’s _killed her own fucking Father to have this wretched crown_ , and she did what Ymir _begged_ from her.

It is cruel how warm and gentle Ymir feels. How her arms wrap around her so protectively, how _familiar_ this is. How _much_ Krista has _missed_ her. She can’t _breathe_. Her lungs have given up. Her head is spinning. She gasps, struggling to grasp for air. _She’s drowning_. And she needs Ymir to thrust her up to the surface.

Krista looks at her. At her dirt-ridden cheeks, the large red mark on her face where Krista hurt her, _she looks at her_ ; and she is alive. Krista moves her hand, just a little above her chest, wanting a heartbeat. _Wanting proof that this isn’t a dream_. And she can feel her. Her heart is beating, she is breathing, and she is here. 

When she grabs Ymir by the collar, Ymir braces herself for the worst.

But Krista just lets their foreheads rest together. She closes her eyes.

This is all she has ever wanted.

‘Are you staying?’ She whispers.

Ymir hates the fact Krista has to ask her that. 

‘Only if you’ll have me.’

Mad. _Mad_. Krista grips onto her tighter. Of course she’ll have her. She’ll have _all of her_. She’ll have every fucked up part of her, and she’ll love her, and she’ll guard her, and she’ll _have her_. Nobody else, but Ymir. 

As it’s always been.

Just like that, their fates are sealed.

 

 

 

 

 

By the Queen’s direct order, Ymir Fritz belongs within the Palace grounds. 

The Survey Corps do not have Royal permission to take her away. _She’s untouchable_. The Queen makes it clear that she is an ally, a friend, and she has finally come home. She says all of this _like stone_. Suddenly, faced with her people, Krista is somebody else entirely. _Something else_. Thoroughly convinced in her own words, and remaining faithful to them, despite the way some soldiers look in regards to Ymir’s liberation.

Ymir watches Historia speak from the slight gap in the door. 

_They all adore her_. 

Everybody is on their knees, _bowing to her_. They respect her. They love her. 

Historia wears robes, and a crown, and she’s a Goddess. 

A sharp snap of fear runs down Ymir’s spine.

 

 

 

 

 

‘ _I killed him_.’

Ymir can’t help herself. She imagines a young, innocent Krista finding the knife and stabbing her Father through the heart. _And all of the blood_. For Krista to be _drowning_ in her own Father’s blood, as she continuously stabs and stabs at his flesh. Because she doesn’t have a choice. Because she has to.

_Because he wanted her dead too._

She killed him with her own two hands. 

There is a long pause.

Ymir looks at her, frowning. Krista has suddenly grown distant. 

Before Ymir can ask what’s wrong, _what isn’t she telling her_ , Krista confesses. 

‘I was given Titan Serum. _It was for me to use_. And, for a second, I was about to, but––’ she stops, stops because Ymir is looking at her in so much horror and mortified silence, she needs a _moment_. ‘––What you said to me, before you left––’ _before you chose Reiner and Bertolt over me_ , ‘––to live my own life. _I couldn’t do it, Ymir_.’

‘Why are you telling me this?’

‘I don’t know,’ Krista whispers, avoiding her eyes. 

But it’s obvious why. Krista knows. _Ymir knows_. 

It is _obvious_. 

 

 

 

 

 

One day. One day, Krista–– _Historia_ ––will realise. She will turn to Ymir, and demand her to leave. She will realise just _how much_ Ymir hurt her. How she forced Krista to her knees, she was in that much grief when she left. _What Ymir_ ** _did_** _to her_. It was worse than her own Father’s abuse. Ymir _broke her fucking heart_ , and that is a crime unforgivable. She grew close to this woman, and then this woman––

_cast her aside_.

Ymir dreads that day. 

So much so, she has nightmares about them. 

In these nightmares, Krista might just have her escorted out by guards. To be thrown into the mud, and have the Palace gates _closed on her_. 

In these nightmares, Krista might pin Ymir to the ground, and stab the needle into her neck.

Kick her off the highest wall.

In these nightmares, Krista sentences Ymir to another lifetime as a Mindless Titan.

In these nightmares, Ymir wakes up sweating, writhing in the sheets, desperate to catch her breath. 

In these nightmares, she is small, and insignificant, and afraid. 

In these nightmares, the Queen stabs the blade through Ymir’s back, and watches the blood pour. 

 

 

 

 

 

Except, that day never comes.

 

 

 

 

 

Children chase after her with squeals of delight. The Queen has adopted orphans, brought them into a home, a place with shelter. Initially, Ymir didn’t know how to respond. _Because there are a_ ** _lot_** _of unwanted children_. 

But children have the kindest souls.

They want to play. They want to forget about their past. They want to try and catch Ymir, while she dashes across the Palace gardens. And they’re laughing, and desperate to catch her, their small hands outstretched, their smiles so wide, they must surely be the happiest little things on the planet.

She finds herself loving it, _loving them_. Children sit in her lap, climb her shoulders, ask her for stories. Their favourite is about a Princess who saved the life of a boy; a boy who changed appearance every full moon, and was forced to live in hiding. Until the Princess waltzed into his life and _loved_ him. 

These children remind Ymir of a life she could have had.

These orphans. Who, before Krista, were searching the streets for food.

These orphans _are_ her. Only, Ymir didn’t have a Krista when she was a child. Instead, she had a lunatic, who crafted a Halo above her head, and claimed her a Goddess. A lunatic who realised he was wrong, and watched while Ymir was thrown rocks at, was sentenced to death. Driven to madness and turned into one of those _things_. 

 

 

 

 

 

Krista watches from the balcony. Ymir is mocking the guards. Trying her best to snap them out of their stoic reverie, and laugh at her jokes. She just can’t help herself.

Although it is a funny sight. 

Ymir wears civilian clothes, and doesn’t look the part. Krista has no plans to enforce her to. Yet, amongst all the glamour of the Palace, Ymir is so _out of place_. It’s actually endearing. Krista catches herself smiling.

She lost this. _She lost her._

When Ymir returns inside the Palace, having managed to make several of the guards buckle, and laugh at her games, she finds Krista has been waiting for her.

‘Ymir.’

_This_ isn’t a joke anymore. Ymir blinks, ‘What is it?’

Krista doesn’t say anything. She turns on her heel, and walks away, expecting Ymir to follow.

She does. Of course. Ymir would follow her anywhere.

Once in private, Krista closes the door. She’s breathing raggedly, as if she were nervous, or afraid, or if Ymir’s presence crushes her entirely. Ymir places a hand on her hip, waiting patiently for Krista to find her words. 

Krista swallows. Braces herself. 

‘Are you enjoying it here?’

Ymir raises a brow. ‘Uh, sure. I mean, it’s a _Palace_. I can’t exactly complain, can I?’

‘Would your rather we didn’t do this?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘What if––’ Krista takes one step closer, ‘––I were to abdicate?’

‘Why the fuck would you do that?’

‘If _you_ wanted that, I would do it.’

Ymir can’t believe what she’s hearing. Even after everything, Krista _still_ puts Ymir’s life before her own. Because if Ymir didn’t like this place, and would rather live amongst Titans, or roam the streets, or whatever else, then Krista would do that too. 

Because Ymir’s happiness is crucial. Her happiness, her joy, is _everything to her_. 

Ymir takes Krista’s face between her hands, and she kisses her mouth. 

It is the first time they’ve kissed, and Krista is taken aback. She gasps against her lips, and it’s all so sudden, so fast. The kiss barely lasts a second. Ymir immediately retreats slightly. _It’s so delayed_. It has taken them too long to get to here, and the damage _glares_ at them both. 

Hesitant, almost demure, Krista raises herself onto her tiptoes, and bumps their noses together. ‘ _Kiss me again_.’ 

Ymir obliges. 

This time, she kisses her properly, and, this time, Krista responds. She pushes into her, deepening the buss, her hands knotting through Ymir’s hair and softly pulling. They kiss as if they have done it over a hundred times, over a hundred years, over a hundred lifetimes. They kiss, and they kiss, and they kiss, and Krista could easily be driven to insanity at how _much_ she wants this, needs this, how _good_ Ymir feels on her body.

Oh, she could _die_. 

As she always imagined, Krista tastes of sweet sunshine. The pretty colours of the world. But, behind it all, there’s the taste of grit and earth. A dark history, dangerously being swept into each kiss. Something angry and damaged and tormented and traumatised. Somebody desperate to be loved, to be accepted, to be _kept_. 

She isn’t a little girl anymore. Not that she was much of one before.

‘Don’t stop,’ Krista murmurs against her lips. ‘ _Don’t stop_.’

They kiss for what may have been an eternity. They kiss until their lips are bruised, until they’re sore, and then they kiss again.

 

 

 

 

 

Her hands are rough, and she’s so _small_. Undernourished, a life of poverty and pain scarred across her body. Her freckled skin is smooth in some places, not in others. Krista can feel _bone_ when she grips onto her, their limbs tangled, hair falling in the way of their kisses. Ymir is _hot_ , too hot, and Krista nearly has to fall back from the scold. 

But she can’t. She can’t possibly. She moans, rocking into her, gripping Ymir’s hand desperately, and guiding her between her thighs. _She wants to be taken_. She doesn’t care anymore, she doesn’t care what this means, what they will say, how they will respond, _she just wants her_. And it’s maddening. Completely maddening.

‘ _What are we doing?_ ’

Krista nearly gasps at her question.

She looks at her. What are they doing? What does this mean?

_Why now? Why not years ago when they could have been happy?_

‘I don’t know,’ Krista whispers, and Ymir is terrified.

Because Krista _has_ to know. She knows better than anybody. _She knows_ and, yet, right now, she’s helpless. 

_I don’t know_.

‘There’s nothing we can do.’

Krista’s eyes are painfully apologetic, and Ymir can barely _look_ at her. She does and says nothing, and Krista kisses the corner of her mouth, her nose, her cheek–– _she kisses every inch of her face_ , an angel, a demon, a poor, troubled thing. Ymir’s breath catches violently, and she grabs her, sealing their mouths together. 

The assault of so many emotions makes Krista whimper, and she fumbles for leverage, grasping what she can. 

_It’s just tragic that they can’t even_ ** _smile_** _at how beautiful this is, the fact they have wanted this for years, and it’s finally here, it’s happening_. 

Ymir’s fingers dig into her spine, and she pushes Krista back, causing her to collapse into the sheets. 

Krista reacts, grabbing her urgently, pressing her mouth to hers, wrapping her legs around her hips, trapping her there, refusing her escape, and

_it shouldn’t be like this_. 

They stop. Briefly. They’ve reopened old wounds, and need to _stop_. 

Krista’s eyes are wide, so bright, they could _blind_ her. 

‘I love you.’

Everything else just ceases to exist. Ymir is rendered speechless. She looks down at her, and her expression, her darling face, is just _tragic_. She’s scared. And Krista has _never_ seen her look this way. _Ever_. Ymir is suddenly open and vulnerable, and Krista is _shocked_ by how fragile this woman truly is. 

‘I love you,’ she says again, _whispers_. ‘I love you. _I love you_.’

They tumble into each other. Their lips painting each other’s skin, nursing their tired wounds, and their hands pulling and stroking and grasping. They don’t _dare_ be apart. And Krista’s words rattle in Ymir’s mind like torture, like poetry, like the most wonderful and enchanting thing she has ever heard in her long, ageing life.

Krista knocks back her head, moaning each time Ymir’s fingers move inside her, each time her tongue takes her, each time Krista has to pull at her hair, and cry out. She drags Ymir up again, desperate to kiss her, and Ymir notices the tears pouring down her cheeks. It overwhelms her that somebody could feel _so much_ for her, and she’s _assaulted_. 

_What has she done?_

Ymir could apologise endlessly. Ymir could make herself _bleed_. Ymir could throw herself from the castle again, and let herself _die_ for this girl, but––

‘ _Please don’t leave me_.’

Tears mist her eyes, and Ymir rests her forehead into her shoulder, shuddering from each sob breaking her body. 

Those four words are her ruin.

 

 

 

 

 

When Ymir sleeps, and thinks Krista does too, Krista still holds on. Holds tighter still, and refuses to ever let go.

 

 

 

 

 

‘Do you regret returning to me?’

She just looks at her then. Her face soft. _Too soft for Ymir_. ‘How could I?’

It is a ridiculous question. But Krista had to ask. Ymir is still adjusting to this Royal life, even if she’s kept out of meetings, and whatever else Krista has pledged to agree to. She’s Krista _way out of it_. She is the reminder as to why she took the crown, and let it crush her skull. If it weren’t for Ymir, Krista would not have had the courage to confront her Father and take what was so rightfully hers to take.

Krista’s eyes are bright. Too beautiful, and too sad.

They know too much.

‘I would’ve come back to you sooner. But, I had Reiner watching my every move like a hawk–– _that asshole_ ––and, even after that, I didn’t know––’ Ymir looks at her, and it’s a mistake. Ymir is so _young_ in this moment. ‘I didn’t know what you would think if you saw me again. I was _stupid_ for leaving you before, and I’m sorry. I was scared you wouldn’t want me. I know, right? How embarrassing is that?’

‘No,’ Krista says. She stands. ‘No, it’s not.’ She leans down to kiss her forehead. ‘I just need to know if––if this _is_ your choice. To stay here, with me.’

Ymir smiles. ‘You know, I’m not afraid of being with you. I’m afraid of being _without_ you. I’m afraid of waking up, and not finding you beside me.’

When she looks up at Krista’s expression, Ymir grins wide. It’s cheeky, and mocking, and _so very her_ , Krista catches herself falling in love all over again.

‘See?’ Ymir snorts. ‘I can be mushy, too.’

Krista kisses her, smiling and filled with joy. Instantly, Ymir wraps her arms around Krista’s middle, and holds her close. Her kisses are a promise of a thousand tomorrows, and a thousand more after that. The pledge to stay by her side, and to stay by her side forever. It’s all the promise in the world which Krista needs. 

Like a monster who loves an angel, and a knight who worships her Queen.

‘And you’re _full of it_ ,’ Krista says in-between kisses.

Ymir just laughs. 


End file.
